A policeman cannot stop vehicles on the road unless he is authorized to do so by law. The
policeman cannot open citizens’ private letters if this would violate the fundamental right to
freedom of correspondence.
And even where powers actually have been given, they can only be exercised in
accordance with the purpose for which they have been given.
This is called the prohibition of abuse (or misuse) of power, or ofde ́tournement de pouvoir.
The mayor of a town may decide on the granting of building permits, but he may not
refuse a permit just because the applicant belongs to a political party which opposes the
mayor. See also Sect.8.3.2.2.
The notion of the rule of law is largely a common law notion. In civil law
systems, reference is often made to theRechtsstaatorE ́tat de Droit. This is a state
“under the law,” which generally means that the state is bound by legal norms,
respects the separation of powers, and abides by human rights.
8.2.7 Fundamental Rights
A very important way to curb the state’s power, and to protect the individual against
it, is to commit the state to respect fundamental human rights.
Classical human rights are referred to as civil and political rights, for example the freedom
of speech or freedom of expression. This prevents the state, in principle, from censoring
newspapers or from prosecuting individuals for what they have said or written.8.2.7.1 Codification of Fundamental Rights
Magna Carta The codification of fundamental rights goes back many centuries.
An important historic example (even though we have to acknowledge that this
document did not cover all human beings) was theMagna Carta(1215), a docu-
ment in which King John of England accepted limitations to his arbitrary power.
It contained, for instance, the rule that no “freeman” could be punished except through the
law of the land.
The English Parliament again insisted on the codification of individual rights in
the Bill of Rights 1689.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen Two other more recent
historical documents are of particular importance. One is the Revolutionary 1789
French Declaration of the rights of man and the citizen, which heralded the
overthrow of the absolute power of monarchs on the European continent.
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